Monthly rundown, vol. 11 plus a bonus gift booklist

Mystery, action, brave kids, and we all need more sleep

Happy Cozy Season, readers! The weather was appropriately November-ish today, perfect for a giant mug of ginger chai tea and a book, although I do have quite a long to-do list this week after our week-long Thanksgiving break and travel (absolutely worth it to visit our out-of-town family). I’m still going to have that giant mug of tea, of course.

Since I only have four book reviews this month and two of them are series installments, I’m also going to include a short list of books that I think make great gifts.

Reviews:

The Burning Page, Genevieve Cogman. This is the third in the Invisible Library series, and while I didn’t like it quite as much as the second, it was still a highly enjoyable read: fast-paced with high stakes. Irene is as snarky, smart, and stubborn as ever, and the author continues to tease out the world-building and character development.

The Nature of the Beast, by Louise Penny was a great autumn read, with interesting, enigmatic antagonists that have some definite villain potential. In addition to having an intriguing central mystery, it also raises questions about Armand Gamache’s future career.

The Strangers, Margaret Peterson Haddix (Greystone Secrets #1). I absolutely loved this middle grade mystery-adventure novel. It had a tense, page-turning story and creative world-building. The main characters were nuanced, distinct, and realistically both and scared.

The Life You’ve Always Wanted, John Ortberg. In this book on spiritual disciplines, the author manages to strike a nice balance between being easy to read but also very thoughtful and packed full of practical wisdom. I liked the author’s approach to the “why” behind practicing spiritual disciplines, and his unconventional approach to what spiritual disciplines are. (Spoiler: they’re not tasks to mark off of a checklist, or external markers of belonging, but practices that help you transform your heart and mind). I was hooked once he said that getting enough sleep is a spiritual discipline! The writing style was conversational and accessible, and while I occasionally rolled my eyes at some of the dated “dad joke”-type humor, it wasn’t too distracting.

Bonus!! Great Books to Give as Gifts

If you want to give books as gifts, there are a few different approaches. You can pull from best seller and best-books-of-the-year lists. You can buy a unique or collector’s edition of a classic or a favorite. If funds allow, you can gift a subscription like Book of the Month or Owl Crate. Or you can find under the radar and backlist books that your gift recipient might have missed the first time around, recommended by a favorite book reviewer (like me!) The books I’ve listed below are a mixture of new, old, and in-between, but are all books that I think would make great gifts. Pair a book with a coffee shop gift card, some cozy socks, or–in the case of the cookbooks–a kitchen tool. 

Tongue-in-cheek Regency Romance: Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl

British mystery with a lot of humor: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Fast-paced action:  Skyward by Brandon Sanderson 

Slightly weird and beautiful: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Non-fiction history-adjacent: American Nations by Colin Woodard

Memoir: All My Knotted-up Life by Beth Moore

A book of blessings and poems: To Bless the Space Between Us, John O’Donahugh

Cookbooks:

The Cook’s Book by Bri McKoy

That Noodle Life, by Mike Le and Stephanie Le

Bread Baking for Beginners by Bonnie O’Hara

That’s it for this month! Do you like receiving books as gifts? Do you have favorite books you like to give? Let me know in the comments!